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Stepping back and determining what is actually happening in a classroom before judging what should be happening, however, is a crucial step to changing instruction for the better.

It says let’s take the evidence before us, see where we are, and see what we think we need to do next to make progress, instead of people with formal authority who are supposed to have all of the answers.”

n order for rounds to work properly the focus must be on teaching–not teachers–with everyone in the room free to speak his or her mind and respect strict confidentiality for participants.

he “instructional core”–the essential interaction between teacher, student, and content that creates the basis of learning– is the first place that schools should look to improve student learning.

Cognitively Guided Instruction that district officials say aligns well with the common standards' math expectations.

A quiet, sub-rosa fear is brewing among supporters of the Common Core State Standards Initiative: that the standards will die the slow death of poor implementation in K-12 classrooms.

And we don't want to just bring superficial understanding of these standards, but to deepen the understanding, so we have an opportunity to deliver instruction in a way we haven't before."

No matter which framework was used, teachers received relatively low scores on their ability to engage students in "analysis and problem-solving," to use "investigation/problem-based approaches," to create "relevance to history, current events," or to foster "student participation in making meaning and reasoning," according to a report from the foundation.

Mr. Wu, the UC-Berkeley professor, contends that current math teachers and curricula focus almost exclusively on procedures and algorithms, an approach he refers to as "textbook mathematics."

Anecdotal evidence from a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation study suggests that teachers already struggle to help students engage in the higher-order, cognitively demanding tasks emphasized by the standards, such as the ability to synthesize, analyze, and apply information.

But the common core emphasizes understanding of the logical, structural concepts underpinning mathematics—the idea being that understanding how and why algorithms work is as important as crunching numbers.

'Let's just take some time to think about the mathematics and set the teaching strategies aside for a moment,' " Mr. Thomas said. "It's imperative we don't send people out the door with just strategies, tips, and tricks to teach fractions. We have to make sure they understand fractions deeply."

"Teachers will teach as they were taught, and if they are going to incorporate these ideas in their teaching, they need to experience them as students," said Thomas R. Guskey, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Kentucky's college of education, in Lexington. "The PD will have to model very clearly the kinds of activities we want teachers to carry forward and use in their classrooms."

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, have repeatedly said that states are free to choose whether to embrace or reject common standards and tests.

Math teachers face having to teach skills to which they're unaccustomed, since some concepts have been moved to lower grades in the new standards

ocus longer and more deeply on fewer concepts and to emphasize conceptual understanding and practical applications of math

demand better analysis and argumentation skills, and they involve teachers from all subjects in teaching the literacy skills of their disciplines

More than most states' own standards, they insist on students building content knowledge and reading skill from independently tackling informational texts. They

Professional development remains a central area of concern as the standards are implemented, and many in the field say the success of the initiative rests on it.

Most current teachers have read the standards for their grade level, think highly of them, and are willing to teach them, but few understand the profound changes in teaching that they will require

A majority of the teachers indicate that they think the new common-core standards are pretty much the same as what they have been doing," Mr. Schmidt said in an email. "The difficulty I foresee is that, in spite of this openness toward their implementation, the data suggests that most teachers do not recognize how difficult that process will be.

Educators' judgments about whether the tests truly reflect the standards will be crucial to sustaining the standards over the long term, said Mr. Jennings of the Center on Education Policy.

"Because of their experience with NCLB, teachers want to know, what are the tests going to require? Will the tests back up what they are supposed to do with the new standards? If they don't, then the entire effort is lost."

Although strategies are important for students to understand and use, experts caution teachers to be mindful of how much time they spend teaching strategies versus teaching the actual texts

Good readers ask questions of the text; that's a strategy you can teach, model, and encourage, says McTighe.

"The standards are supposed to be 80 percent of what you teach; it would be absurd to say you don't ever want to connect a text to kids' lives and experiences. But it should be after you have mined from the text every insight and understanding you can." He explains that there are several good reasons text-to-self questions do not appear in the standards:

but the close reading or Socratic approach required by complex texts is a bumpy road, marked by dissonance, ambiguity, and hard work,

The ultimate goal of education is transfer, but to get there is a long haul, and it requires a gradual release of teacher responsibility, lots of practice and feedback, internalizing ideas and strategies and then using them," he says.

With the growth of open education resources via Youtube and Creative Commons, it is important to note that excellent video lectures have been and are freely/easily available.

Sal Khan is not showing any examples about what students and teachers are doing beyond Khan Academy. The news stories are not showing the open-ended problems the kids should be engaging with after mastering the basics

he focus is on the wrong things. Khan Academy is just one tool in a teacher’s arsenal. (If it’s the only tool, that is a HUGE problem.)

It really is a cycle of learning model.)  It provides a sequence of learning activities based on the learning theories and instructional models of Experiential Learning Cycles

People learn experientially.  It is the teacher’s responsibility to structure and organize a series of experiences

This is where and when videos such as those archived by Khan Academy, Neo K-12, Teacher Tube,

n a user-generated learning environment, students could be asked to locate the videos, podcasts, and websites that support the content-focus of the lesson.  These media can then be shared with other students.

Part of this phase includes an online chat for asking and addressing questions about the content presented via the videos, podcasts, websites.  Through a “chat” area such as Etherpad or Google Docs, learners can ask questions with responses provided by co-learners and educators.  Videos could even be embedded into a Voicethread so students can post comments/reactions to the content.

They can view them in a learning setting that works for them (music, lighting, furniture, time of day) and can view/review information that they find particularly interesting or do not understand.

t is a phase of deep reflection on what was experienced during the first phase and what was learned via the experts during the second phase.

During this phase, learners get to demonstrate what they learned and apply the material in a way that makes sense to them

giving way to an 80/20 proportion in the secondary grades. Bear in mind, as well, that the common core is clear that its recommendations span the reading expectations for all core subjects. As a result, it is not advocating for us ELA teachers to dump poetry and novels except for, say, two months out of the 10 in our school year. Rather, we’re encouraged to partner with our colleagues in a substantive way, and work together to help kids approach nonfiction texts with critical and active minds.

we will not achieve the outcomes we expect and need without comprehensive professional learning for educators that supports the new standards. The dramatic shift in teaching prompted by the common core will require practical, intensive, and ongoing professional learning

teachers will need to employ instructional strategies

They will need subject-area expertise well beyond basic content knowledge and pedagogy to create dynamic, engaging, high-level learning experiences for students.

their leaders will need to champion professional learning in their buildings and back the teachers who coach and support each other.

Administrators and teachers working together plan, execute, and assess professional learning.

It is collective and collaborative within and across buildings, so the quality of instruction improves consistently from classroom to classroom and from school to school. It includes time for teachers to learn from each other, examine research and effective practices, and problem-solve. It demands leadership from teachers as coaches and mentors, while continuing to tap the knowledge of outside experts and resources.

Learning Forward,

Sandler Foundation

It is through this combination of commitment to the standards and comprehensive change in professional learning that we hope to see the promise of the common core come to life.

personal from the practice — something Elmore says medical professionals do well, but not educators. “Educators . . . tend to confound and confuse the practice with the person,” he writes. “Indeed, for most educators, their practice is who they are.”

he and the other facilitators spend a lot of time at the beginning helping rounds participants understand that everyone involved — not just teachers

stress the importance of collecting meaningful, raw evidence when observing a classroom, and to do it without judgment

“There’s tremendous value in slowing down. We go in and watch a reading lesson. Normally the observers want right away to say, Wasn’t her approach fabulous? or, Oh! We use that book, too, instead of, What went on in there? How did that student learn?” she says. “Rounds is stopping to really try to understand those interactions.

“As educators, we have such different ideas of what effective teaching and learning is.”

training model — one that includes a shared language and a common sense of what’s effective — work for educators?

Once the group forms, they identify a problem that the school or district is struggling with, observe classrooms, debrief, and then focus on what needs to be done next.

These networks can be formed in one school

Here, a basic question is asked: What is the next level of work?

ultimate goal, say the authors, is for the protocols and practices learned doing instructional rounds to become as much a part of the culture of education as they are a part of the culture in medicine.

roup-learning mentality — which centers on the idea that everyone involved is working on their practice

“School leaders started looking at each other as resources to learn and share ideas,”

great if we had a coherent, national model of what effective teaching is

It’s a practice, not a theory.

how do you prioritize and narrow down the content you want to teach so it fits within the limited framework of the course?

What will you accept as evidence that students are making progress toward the learning goals of the course?  How will you know if they are “getting it”?

Finally, after you have decided what results you want and how you will know you’ve achieved them, then you start planning how you’re going to teach.

"There’s very clearly a feel within the school that students don’t need to abandon their culture"